Mysterious Bonsai Skulls Beautifully Combine Life And Death

Grave Yard Bonsai Mountain Skulls are a unique take on “Memento mori” art. “Remember that you can die” in latin, this art aims to remind us of our own mortality, so it’s fitting that these handmade trophies are “cast in PVC plastic and…moulded off a real human skull.” Made by Australian company Jack Of The Dust, these 850 gram, 13x16x22cm skulls be a part of your home for just $399 AUS.

“Jack of the Dust” is an obsolete United States Navy occupational designation. Despite sounding ominous, it was used for the ship’s steward, and “referr[ed] to the dusty atmosphere created by issuing quantities of flour and dried biscuit.” The term is still occasionally used today for a ship’s culinary specialist in charge of the canned goods storeroom.

Andrew Firth had been a boat builder for 12 years

“I absolutely loved maritime terminology so that’s where I found the name jack of the dust,” he told Bored Panda

“I’ve been doing the skulls now for 3 years with absolutely no training”

“I actually didn’t like all the skulls that where out there, they looked tacky. And I wasn’t really into art”

“But what I do love doing is creating! As a kid is was Lego, then I grew up painting Warhammer figures…”

“…then onto building boats and now skulls”

“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.”
—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
—Mark Twain